Unions B.C. Fed meet to co-ordinate action dt B.C. Hydro provoking province wide strike Four local unions representing employees of B.C. Hydro went in Session with officers of the B.C. Federation of Labor Thursday as the Tribune went to press to Consider co-ordinated action against the giant crown cor- poration. Two of the unions, the 3,500 member Amalgamated Transit Union and 600 gas workers in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 213, are in a legal position to strike. The ATU staged one day work stoppages in Vancouver and Victoria this week in an attempt to force Hydro negotiators back to the table. Hydro has refused to The party’s convention banner behind him, Communist Party negotiate further on the union’s demands for a 35 hour work week — standard for all other Hydro employees — or on its demand to take away the union spareboard and reduce working conditions. If Hydro refuses to return to the bargaining table, a full province wide strike is likely to result, ATU business agent Al Ashton said Wednesday. At a meeting Tuesday in Vancouver, the bus drivers voted 99 percent,to back the position of the negotiating committee. The 600 gas workers are demanding better than four percent in the second year of a contract with Hydro and have already served strike notice. The third union affected is the 3,400 members of the Office and Technical Employees Union which was to take a strike vote Wednesday. : The fourth union is Local 258 of the IBEW which although has signed a contract with Hydro is currently. engaged in a dispute over safety conditions in the Fraser Valley with 100 linemen refusing to work. The linemen will not return to the job until punitive suspensions against three union members are lifted. Hydro’s public response to the see HYDRO pg. 12 leader Maurice Rush addresses delegates Sunday following his re-election to the position of provincial leader at the conclusion of the two-day —Sean Griffin photo convention. (Convention stories, pages 1, 11). Jobs, environment not in conflict CLC secretary rebuffed Both the Canadian Labor Congress and the Vancouver Sun Came under fire from trade unionists in this province last week for the much publicized statement Calling for jobs to be put ahead of €nvironmental considerations. Newspapers throughout the Country, including the Sun gave Prominent coverage to a speech by CLC secretary Donald Mon- tgomery in which he said that it Would be “an act of criminal irresponsibility” to place jobs at risk ‘‘even for serious en- vironmental considerations.”’ Although it was an address to a banquet audience, Montgomery’s speech was presented in the press as a policy statement by the Congress since it coincided with a CLC-sponsored conference of “Jobs and the Environment’, held February 19 to 21. But as CLC executive vice- president Julien Major em- phasized in opening the con- ference, participants — which CCW marks International Women’s Day on Mar. 12 Southern Africa Action Coalition representative Kerensa Lai, and Vancouver lawyer Elspeth Gardner, who represented Canada at the ifth session of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes of the Military Junta in Chile, are among stip) Day celebration, Sunday, dress the International Women’s those slated to ad- March 12, 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Trout Lake Community Centre in Van- couver, Astrid Davidson, .women’s program director fo Federation of Labor, will also address the celebration, theB.c. chapter of the Canadian Congress of Women. The CCW has also scheduled entertainment as well as an the plans for Canadian participation in the 11th M Havana, Cuba. r the B,C. sponsored by update on World Youth Festival The address for the community centre is 3350 Victoria Drive, ancouver, included government represen- tatives and civil servants — were not empowered to make policy, which is the sole prerogative of the CLC convention. In fact, ‘‘the labor movement in British Columbia does not accept Montgomery’s concept of jobs at any cost,” Len Guy, secretary of the B.C. Federation of Labor, said in a statement issued last week. “The goal of achieving full employment in Canada does not in anyway conflict with the goal of preserving our environment,” he said. Guy rapped the Vancouver Sun for the coverage it gave to Mon- tgomery’s speech “‘when the actual tone of the conference was that the labor movement does not have to choose between jobs or en- vironmental protection. “Why did the media not give more prominent coverage to the other speeches outlining support for environmental protection and for full employment?” he. asked. United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union president Jack Nichol, whose union has long been an advocate of policies for full employment and legislation to protect the environment, voiced his see PRESS pg. 12 Abst a, j Thurs ¢ ATU MEMBERS... of B.C. Hydro buses Tuesday. See Mec . manning picket lines during one-day shut-down —Sean Griffin photo CP warns of new bids for oil port The. decision of the federal cabinet to kill temporarily the Kitimat oil port-pipeline project was hailed as a voctory for mass public pressure at last weekend’s Communist Party..convention . in Vancouver. : But, the CP warned, ‘‘The Liberal government, committed heavily to a continentalist ap- proach, will attempt to facilitate the interests of the U-S. multinationals who have not given up their plans for a Kitimat oil- port-pipeline.”’ As the CP issued the warning from Vancouver, prime minister Trudeau admitted in Ott-wa that the application of Kitimat Pipeline Company to the National Energy Board will proceed as usual. Jack Cressey, head of the consortium of U.S. multinational. oil cor- porations, rejected the suggestion that the project was dead and maintained that the application was still pending before the National Energy Board. “Tt is obvious that the govern- ment doesn’t have its game plan worked out yet,’’ United Fisher- men and Allied Workers Union oil port. co-ordinator Arnie Thomlinson commented to the Tribune Tuesday. Thomlinson pointed out that the government has not introduced any legislation and that the only definite decision made so far was to kill Andrew Thompson’s West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry. Thomlinson said that the an- nouncement that the Kitimat port is not needed was likely a tactical ploy to kill the Thompson Inquiry and to shelve the sensitive oil port issue until after the next federal election. In-particular, the oil port issue has placed federal Liberal cabinet minister Iona Campagnolo in an untenable position in her North Coast Skeena constituency. One of the last to find out about the termination of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry, commissioner Andrew Thompson, in Vancouver Monday, expressed skepticism over “‘policy by press release’’. He said that the statement by Liberal minister Len Marchand that there is no need for west coast oil port “now or in the forseeable future” needs to be formally extablished as government policy. He suggested that in scientific energy forecasting the ‘‘foreseeable future’? means 10 to 15 years. It was that demand that was also pressed by the Communist Party at its February 25 convention. Warning that the Kitimat proposal was not dead, the CP demanded that the federal government “introduce legislation into the Parliament formally stating that no west coast oil port be considered in this country for at least 15 years.” The CP resolution also demanded that the federal government provide adequate see LEGISLATION pg. 12 INSIDE rs eet srinyrit oe aa | Aen OER Si a “i Dx e QUEBEC: its position in a four-page leaf- let, the Parti Communiste du Quebec launches a mass campaign in preparation for the announced referendum, ! page 6. Outlining e FOREIGN CONTROL: The last of a three-part series on foreign ownership and con- trol analyzes the govern- ment’s increasing acceptance of foreign capi- tal, page 5. e FILMS: Japan’ and the USSR_ have created an exceptional work with the film Dersu Uzala, now showing in Vancouver, page 10. e LABOR: Although some unionists have seen the agreement on the Vanply shutdown as a victory for tripartism, those policies provide no answers for the economic crisis, page 12.